


Transparent Corners of Time - [1/1]

by nahemaraxe (zephyrina)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife, M/M, Self-cest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:20:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephyrina/pseuds/nahemaraxe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Time Traveler's Wife AU. Bob keeps on jumping back and forth through time - and meeting Frank, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transparent Corners of Time - [1/1]

**Transparent Corners of Time**  
(8,140) // (NC-17)  
Bob Bryar/Frank Iero, Bob Bryar/Bob Bryar  
The Time Traveler's Wife AU. Bob keeps on jumping back and forth through time - and meeting Frank, too.  
The guys aren't mine, it never happened.  
Written for [](http://kira-snugz.livejournal.com/profile)[**kira_snugz**](http://kira-snugz.livejournal.com/) , prompt 'Stolen Moments'. Inspiration comes from [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/78223.html#cutid1%22) at [](http://we-are-cities.livejournal.com/profile)[**we_are_cities**](http://we-are-cities.livejournal.com/). ♥ to [](http://framianne.livejournal.com/profile)[**framianne**](http://framianne.livejournal.com/) and [](http://mahoni.livejournal.com/profile)[**mahoni**](http://mahoni.livejournal.com/) for their help and cheering, ♥ to [](http://earlofcardigans.livejournal.com/profile)[**earlofcardigans**](http://earlofcardigans.livejournal.com/) for her beta job. Thank you so much.

 

*

_Bob is twenty-three. Frank is seven._

By now Bob’s well used to jumping back and forth between time. It’s a part of him and when someone asks about it (being a CDP is fairly common now, but not common enough to avoid people’s curiosity), he shrugs and answers that it’s no big deal, not really. It’s just something he’s born with, like the color of his hair or his double jointed shoulders, only that this is a genetic fuck up that causes him to take trips through time and space every once in a while. It could have been worse, he always says. It could have been another gene fucking shit up in his body and bam, wheelchair. Hospital bed. The grave.

Given the ability to choose, Bob explains, nodding gravely to the one he’s been speaking to (and who’s usually nodding along by this point, embarrassed by the other options Bob brought up), he’d choose his CDP thing over anything else, please and thank you. After all it’s all about going, staying there – wherever ‘there’ might be – for a time and then going back to his present. Easy peasy, that’s how he makes it sound.

Actually, it isn’t that simple. First of all, there’s the fact that when he jumps, his clothes don’t jump with him, forcing him to go around stealing some – and that’s something his uncle Joe seems to find deliciously funny, judging by the stack of ridiculous clothes he uses to leave hanging around his house ‘just in case you decide to pay me and aunt Martha an unexpected visit.’ Bob suspects that his uncle even has snapshots of him wearing his aunt’s too big stuff while rummaging through drawers, looking for _something else_ , but he never found any evidence so far.

That aside (Bob doesn’t always jumps to random relatives’ places, meaning he’s an expert clothes thief by now), there’s the fact that his genes have an apparent penchant for bad timing. Bob’s always pictured them as tiny little guys sitting on a strand of DNA, kicking their feet and waiting for the worst moment ever to spring into action. Through the years they've made him miss a couple of very promising one night-stands, a Bears final, two job interviews and a shitload of flights.

Correction. _Three_ job interviews, sort of, if he doesn’t turn back soon.

Sighing, Bob rubs his hands on his face. He’s sitting on a bench in some park he can’t recognize, wearing too baggy pants, even to his standards, and a too tight sweater. No socks or shoes, since the woman whose laundry line he raided didn’t have much out, and thank god it’s a sunny day. Quasi-summerish, judging from the leaves of the trees. Actually, that’s a good thing for a change, since less than an hour ago he was freezing his ass off in Chicago, all bundled up in front of the TV.

“I also had Thai waiting for me in the microwave,” he mumbles to himself, low enough not to be heard by any passer-by, and his stomach growls in agreement. Maybe he could stop someone and ask them for a snack (those teenagers standing by the swings surely have a bag of Doritos to spare), but the truth is that right now Bob doesn’t really feel like walking around barefoot and with stupid clothes. He will soon have to, since he has no idea of how long the jump is going to last, just not in this very moment.

“Fuck my life,” he says, and the next moment something hits him in the back of his head. It’s a toy football, half deflated and dirty; it bounces against the bench first and then on his ankle, ending next to the trashcan. Ow. He turns around toward the playgrounds, where little kids are shouting and laughing and jumping all together; one of the must have kicked the ball too hard or something, sending it to the right rather than to the left. It’s just that there’s no kid running in Bob’s direction and waving to get the ball back – actually, the quick tap-tap-tapping of soles hitting the ground comes from the other side of the path.

“Hi.”

Bob turns. A boy of about six, seven years of age is standing a few feet away from him, his arms crossed on his chest and a pensive look on his face. If the mud on his shirt and face is any indicator, the ball must belong to him. They stare at each other for a moment, then Bob shrugs.

“Hi,” he answers.

“That’s mine.” The kid points to the ball Bob’s holding in his hand and taps his sneaker against the ground. “Give it back,” he demands. No _sorry, sir_ , no _bad aim_ , no anything. Bob raises an eyebrow at him, balancing the toy on his fingers.

“You threw it on purpose, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re weird,” says the kid as if that was explanation enough, and the bitch please glance he casts him almost makes Bob chuckle. He wasn’t so obnoxious when he was this one’s age, Bob’s quite sure about that. At any rate, he twists his wrist a little, throwing the ball, and the kid catches it midair.

“Okay, thanks. You know you have no shoes on?”

“Actually I was just wondering why my feet felt cold. Yeah, I know, but thank you for reminding me,” answers Bob, not unkindly.

“Sure. And where are they?”

“At home, I guess.”

The kid looks at him as if he left part of his brain home, too, then he starts laughing. “You _are_ weird, mister.”

“Everybody says so. Didn’t your mom tell you to not talk to strangers?”

Shrugging, the kid tosses his ball up in the air and catches it right away. “Yes, she did, but you don't have shoes,” he explains patiently, implying that Bob must be really dense to miss such a logic concept. “Besides, I can run pretty fast. You’ll never get me.”

“Of course.”

Bob scrunches his face. He’s in a park he can’t recognize, in a town he doesn’t know the name of and discussing with a seven year old about his lack of shoes, while he should be home, eating his lunch and getting ready to drive to the airport. Seriously, he thinks, it’d be ace if his CDP genes stopped fucking around and started working right now. He needs to meet Brian and that band he’s babysitting these days in a few hours for fuck’s sake.

“Gotta go,” says the kid in that moment, shaking Bob out of his reverie. He takes a few steps toward the playgrounds and waves a hand at him. “Goodbye, Mister Weird. Get some shoes.”

“I’ll do my best, I promise. Go home, kid. And don’t talk to strangers.”

“My name’s Frank, not kid,” he begins, but Bob never manages to hear the rest because he feels a familiar pulling in his guts and jumps back to his own time (and to Chicago, his clothes and his by now cold Thai) before Frank’s eyes.

 

_Bob is fifteen. Frank is ten._

 

Sometime jumps are a blessing. It doesn’t happen often, true, but sometime they really are a life-saver, ass-saver, stat. Say, when he was eight he jumped right before a car could hit him (he still remembers the paralyzing fear, his mom screaming his name and being in his grandmother’s kitchen the next second, several years older and breathing heavily), or the way he disappeared last month while those jocks were chasing him, going back in time and witnessing his parents’ wedding.

This time Bob jumps just when his teacher is asking him to show his classmates how he did his homework and phew, it feels like winning the lottery. Okay, maybe his teacher will check his homework all the same – just to find out that he did none – but whatever, that’s something he’ll worry about once he gets back to his present. Bob’s main priority right now is finding out where he is.

It’s a dark and dusty place, filled with-- well, things. Bob gropes around for a moment as he waits for his eyes to get used to the sudden darkness. Shoes. A pile of comics. Toys. A pair of dirty socks rolled up together, at least judging from the smell and the consistency. Jesus fuck, this looks like the floor under his bed, and Bob would believe he's about to meet the younger version of himself like he did a couple of other times already if it wasn’t for the fact that he never liked-- uh, Hulk that much. Tossing the action figure aside, he starts moving around, but before he can grab the bed frame to pull himself out, dust fills up his nostrils and he sneezes.

“Who’s there?” cries a shill voice right above Bob’s head, followed by some faint thumping and rustling of sheets. “I’m armed and dangerous and I can take you up, don’t you dare!”

“Oh my god,” sighs Bob. A big flashlight points to his face the next second, blinding him, and he has to cover his face with his hands.

“I don’t want to sc--”

“Get out!” The flashlight scans the whole place, as if to make sure that no one else but Bob is lurking under there, then it goes back to his face. “Who are you? What are you doing under my bed? How did you get there? Don’t try shit or I’m gonna hurt you bad. I mean it. Get out.”

“Turn that fucking flashlight away, I can’t see shit.”

“Get out,” orders the kid again (now that he’s talking in a clear voice, it’s plain that Bob ended up in some kid’s bedroom, maybe his little cousin’s), then he moves the flashlight aside. Small mercy, Bob thinks, pushing all the crap aside and crawling out.

He’s still halfway in when the kid whacks him on the head.

“Hey!” Bob roars, turning around and kicking and getting stuck against the low bed frame before slipping out at last. He quickly pushes himself out of reach, skidding on the floor until he’s next to a window and rubbing his head. The fucker hit him with the flashlight handle for fuck’s sake. “I didn’t do anything.”

“That was a warning. Just in case. I can hit harder, so you need to watch out.”

“Really.” Bob rolls his eyes. “I don’t _want_ to hurt you, don’t be stupid.”

“You’d better,” replies the kid, nodding. He stares at him for a couple of moments, then he switches the lamp on his nightstand on. Belligerent look aside, the kid (who isn’t Bob’s cousin) is small and a bit pale, wearing pajamas with ducks printed on them. Given the amount of tissues scattered around and the aspirin pack on the nightstand, he must be sick, too. How cool, thinks Bob, it’d be nice to go back home with the flu because a stupid kid sneezed on him or something. In this very moment, though, the kid doesn’t look like he’s going to sneeze, cough, or – god forbid – puke. Rather, his eyes are shining with curiosity. He places the flashlight in his lap and leans on his knees, studying him.

“You’re no monster.”

“Apparently.”

“Well, that earns you brownie points. But who are you and why were you under my bed? I didn’t see you getting there. And why are you naked by the way? Are you--” the kid’s eyes get huge, realizing maybe for the first time that a real boy like Bob could be more dangerous than imaginary bed monsters “--oh fuck, are you some sick dude like the ones they show on TV? The ones with the raincoat? Are you here to kill us all like in that movie I wasn’t supposed to watch last night?”

“ _No._ Jesus. You’re crazy. I just--” Okay, wow. How is Bob supposed to explain to a kid about his CDP thing? He scratches his nose and pulls his legs up to his chest, hugging them. “I’ll tell you, and I promise I’m no serial killer, but do you have anything I could borrow first? Pants and a shirt, maybe?”

“Hm. Maybe, yes. You stay right there, okay? Don’t move and I’ll get you clothes, hang on.”

The kid hops off the bed and runs out, taking the flashlight with him. When he turns back, less than a minute later, he’s carrying a pair of shorts and a hoodie, and he drops them before Bob’s feet.

“You can wear them. They’re my mom’s boyfriend’s, they should do. You’re big.”

Bob glares. “Mind your own business, little shit, if you don’t want to collect your teeth from the floor.”

“Not my fault if you are,” the kid says, shrugging. He climbs back on the bed, crossed legs and watching intently while Bob pulls up the shorts. It’s kind of unnerving, really.

“Turn around.”

“Why? I’m not gonna tell anybody that you’ve got a fat ass, don’t worry. And--” the kid frowns, tapping his finger against his chin in concentration “--I think Lucy’s fatter anyway. I don’t know. I never saw her naked. I mean, it’s okay.”

Resisting the urge to strangle the kid and get it over with, Bob slips into the hoodie, then he sits on the floor again. “Thanks,” he says, “for the clothes.”

“No big deal, he leaves his stuff in mom’s closet, he won’t even notice. Unless you plan to stick around for a while, that’s it. Do you? You can sleep on the floor if you do, I have a sleeping bag and I don’t think mom’s gonna have issues with it. I’ll ask her tomorrow, when she gets home from her night shift. Hey, so what’s your name? And tell, you promised me you'd explain everything once you were dressed. You are now, explain.”

“Okay. Hm.” Bob chews on his lower lip, shrugging. “I jump. Like, through time. It’s a disease.”

The kid’s eyes grow bigger for a moment. “Oh,” he says with a hint of excitement in his voice, but then he makes a face. “Sure thing. Do you think I’m a five year old stupid kid? I don’t believe you.”

“You believe that there are monsters under your bed and not about CDP people? It’s true, I swear. I’m not shitting you.”

“Well--” The kid wiggles around a bit, embarrassed “--I know that monsters don’t exist, alright? Not for real. I just like to be prepared. What’s CDP?”

“Chrono-Displacement Person. Unlike your monsters, I _exist_ , I’m sorry.”

More wiggling from the kid’s side, and Bob can almost picture gears shifting in his brain, trying to decide if Bob may be trustworthy or not. In the end, he offers him a hesitant smile.

“Okay. Tell me the rest.”

“There’s not much to tell. I was in class one moment and under your bed a moment later, just like that. Bam, gone. It’s a random thing, I don’t know when it’ll happen again or where I’ll end next time or how long it’s going to last. Sometimes I’m gone for minutes, sometimes for days. It depends, there’s no telling. I can either go back in time or forward, but at random, I told you. Oh, and that’s why I was naked by the way. My clothes don’t travel with me.”

“Wow. If you’re telling the truth, this is so _cool_.” The kid bounces on the mattress. He’s beaming now, looking at Bob with a mix of awe and excitement that’s pretty funny to witness. “You said it’s a disease, can I have it, too? It’s much better than anything else I ever heard, honest. Please? I want to jump through time, too. I want to go back and see dinosaurs and in the future and travel on a spaceship and fight aliens. Did you ever go on a spaceship? I’d love that.”

“No, no.” Bob holds up a hand. That’s why he hates getting stuck with kids he doesn’t know, they get overexcited easily and start bombarding him with questions. Not that adults are much better, but at least they usually try to be polite and limit their curiosity. He sighs. “It doesn’t work like that. I jump to places I’m somehow related to. No dinosaurs or spaceships, I ain’t a living time machine, and I can’t pass it along, sorry. This isn’t like a flu, you can’t catch it. I was born like this.”

“I see. That sucks though. I really wanted to fly through space and save the world. Bummer.”

The kid looks so disappointed that Bob can’t help but laugh. “Cheer up, kid. It sounds cooler than it is, really. After a couple of jumps right into the trash, everything loses its appeal, believe me,” he says, getting up and stuffing both hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. “I’m Bob by the way.”

“Frank. Hi.”

“Hi.”

Cautiously, Frank smiles, and after a brief hesitation, Bob smiles back.

*

Bob jumps back a few hours later, while Frank’s half asleep and he’s having a sandwich and a glass of milk, courtesy of Frank’s mom. She reacted remarkably well to finding him on top of the stairs, fidgeting nervously as her son launched himself into her arms and told her the whole story, babbling words and flailing whenever he wanted to emphasize a concept. Apparently, her grandmother’s uncle (or cousin, she couldn’t remember) had CDP, too.

“Maybe that’s why you jumped here,” commented Frank upon hearing that, “your CDP thing knew about it, somehow. Like, being related somehow?”

“Maybe, yes,” answered Bob, shrugging. He had no idea why his genes thought it to be a good idea to transport him under Frank’s bed, but even at fifteen, Bob knew better than asking himself pointless questions.

 

_Bob is four. Frank is sixteen._

 

This is one of his first jumps, and Bob (‘Robert,’ admonishes his mom’s voice in the back of his head) still thinks them to be a really scary thing. It isn’t the jump itself, which is just a tickling feeling in his tummy, but being in a new place all of a sudden, naked and confused and alone.

His mom had explained to him that there’s nothing to be scared about. When he jumps, he needs to cover himself (she’s really worried about it, because he's jumped only around Chicago, and Chicago is wicked cold during winter), and find an adult who could help him, a cop or someone in his family if possible. This clashes with the ‘don’t talk to strangers, don’t accept anything from strangers’ rule, but his very first jump (into a closet, and he screamed his lungs out before a guy, who then turned out to be a younger version of his grandfather, could come and rescue him) already taught him that sometimes rules need to be bent.

Still, even if now he doesn’t scream or cry anymore – he’s a big kid, not a baby in diapers – he’s always super-wary when he jumps. He’s four-but-almost-five, old enough to know that there are both good and bad people in the world, and the boogeyman doesn’t always live under his bed at night. Sometimes the boogeyman has a nice smile or candies, and he doesn’t want to meet him, thank you so much. He wants to go back to the store where he and his mom were doing grocery shopping, back in the cart and with his new toy car in his hands. He would open the package once his mom paid for it, and he’d make it run on the backseat, pretending to be a pilot on the Rocky Mountains while mom drove them home.

“I want to go home!” Bob says out loud, frustrated, and slams a fist against a pile of clothes. It looks like he’s ended up in a closet again, which is good, and maybe he’ll find his grandfather downstairs, but the point is that he doesn’t care about him. He wants to go back. And his mom. Mostly his mom.

Tears are only a step away now, no matter how much of a big boy he is, so he rubs his face with his hand and grabs a sweatshirt from the pile next to his foot. It’s too big for him, it reaches past his knees and the sleeves hide both his hands, but at least it’ll keep him warm for a time being, until someone gives him clothes his size. The second task in his list is finding a bathroom. If this is his grandparents’ bedroom, he just needs to get out and run to the end of the corridor-- but this isn’t his grandparents’ bedroom, not at all. There’s no big bed with that huge, knitted quilt draped over the sheets or the framed mirror, the one with flowers and branches painted on. In their place there’s a small, unmade bed and posters of guys who look at him funny. And action figures, too, since he can recognize Hulk and Batman among the others. Somehow Bob suspects that his grandparents aren’t fan of superheroes enough to keep them in their bedroom.

“Shit,” he whispers. That’s a bad word, and he isn’t even supposed to know about its existence, but adults say it a lot when they’re upset, and he certainly is. It doesn’t matter anyway, he’ll worry about where he is later; now he really needs to pee. Pushing his sleeves up, Bob starts tiptoeing toward the door. He’s almost there when the door swings open, making him jump up in fear.

“Hey!”

A big kid is standing in the corridor, looking surprised, but before he could reach out and grab him, Bob recoils behind a chair and curls up on the floor. He doesn’t know this guy. Maybe he’s the boogeyman? All smiles and candies and ready to-- sell him someplace where they eat children? Bob shudders.

“Hey,” says the big kid again, this time in a gentler voice. He crouches down and looks at him for a moment or two, then he smiles. “What’s your name?”

Shaking his head, Bob tries to flatten himself under the chair.

“You don’t know it?”

Another shake of his head and a wow-you’re-dense look. Does the big kid think he’s talking to a baby? Surely Bob believed boogeymen to be a little smarter than that, can’t he see that Bob’s four?

“I _know_ my name.”

“Alright, so. You’re just not telling,” the big-kid-maybe-boogeyman tries again, and this time Bob nods. They can’t go on like this much longer, though, since Bob’s almost about to wet himself, and that’s something he wants to avoid. Squirming, he stares at the big kid.

“Have to pee. Real bad,” he admits. “You’re a bad man?”

“Who, me? No, I don’t think so. I’m Frank.”

“Hi Fwank,” answers Bob, nodding. He’s still clutching at the chair, ready to make a break for the door should this Frank draw near, but Frank doesn’t seem interested in doing that. Rather, he sits on the floor, cross-legged, and offers him a small smile.

“If you need the bathroom, it’s right about there. First door to the left.”

“--Left?”

“Jesus. Okay.” Frank scratches his head (he has the hood of his sweater pulled up, and he looks a bit ridiculous in Bob’s opinion) before shrugging. “I can show you, alright? I know you’re scared, but I don’t want to hurt you, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says, and since he actually makes a cross on his chest with his finger, Bob figures that he might be telling the truth.

It takes Bob just a couple of seconds more to give up completely and abandon his position under the chair, trotting toward Frank. Much to his credit, Frank doesn’t try to touch him or anything, he just gets on his feet and shows him the bathroom. When Bob slams the door in Frank’s face (he doesn’t need any help, thank you so much, he’s able to pee by himself), he believes he hears a little chuckle.

*

A couple of hours later Bob’s sitting on the couch downstairs, still wrapped up in Frank’s sweater and clutching at the Batman action figure while he eats the last popcorn left in the bowl. Frank made it before, when Bob was watching a cartoon with alien robots who wanted to conquer the Earth, but it didn’t last long. Too bad, Bob thinks, running his finger against the bowl to pick up the melted butter that way.

“Enough with that now or you’ll get a tummy ache,” says Frank.

“But it’s yummy!”

“I know, but still. Tummy ache. You don’t want that, do you?”

“No,” answers Bob, sighing and wiping his hand on Frank’s sweater. “Sticky. And I’m still hungry.”

“Well, mom’s about to come home anyway, she’ll cook you something, okay? She’s really good at it – I mean, for real, I’m not bragging because she’s my mom. Say, do you like lasagna? Or, I don’t know, what’s your favorite food in the world? Let’s do it like this, you tell me and I’ll make a list and mom will cook stuff for you, okay?”

Frank’s grinning, but all that talking about his mom reminded Bob of his own, and-- well, Bob’s lower lip is starting to quiver. He isn’t hungry anymore now, he just wants to go home. Frank’s a nice guy, he let him play with Batman and watch cartoons and eat popcorn and he’s definitely not a boogeyman, but Bob’s never been away for that long, and he really misses his mom. Sniffing, he pulls his knees up to his chest and gives Frank a miserable look.

“Hey, what is it?”

“I want my mom,” Bob says, and who cares if tears are already spilling on his cheeks. “Can you take me home?”

“Aw, buddy.” Frank reaches out to pet his hair, and this time Bob doesn’t pull back. Rather, he crawls in Frank’s lap for a hug real quick, throwing both arms around his neck and sniffling in his hoodie.

“Come on, come on, it’s alright,” says Frank, patting Bob’s back in a half-awkward, half-soothing way. “If you are who I think you are, I’m sure you’ll go back home by yourself in a little while.”

“Promise?”

“Of course. Just have a little more patience, okay? Your mom is waiting for you, I know that, so while we wait for you to jump back to her, why don’t we check if there’s another cartoon? There should be the Ninja Turtles somewhere, I think.”

“Wow.” Bob wiggles a bit in Frank’s lap, picking up the remote from under a pillow and handing it to Frank. “Ninjas are super cool.”

 

_Bob is eighteen and nineteen._

 

Running into himself, no matter what version, is always an experience. The younger versions (he labels them with the year, _Bob #1994, Bob #1987_ , and so on) are a mix of childish energy and teenage shyness, glued together by a range of emotions that spans from curiosity to happiness to sadness. Having to deal with them feels like reliving a small section of his life all the while being disconnected from it, as if he were an outside viewer who knew almost every detail.

The older versions are harder to deal with or to classify. It’s still himself (the eyes are the same, if not the hair, or the round scar next to his mouth, sign of a piercing he has yet to get), and Bob recognizes that, but the mental processes and the interests, the habits and the way he talks are not. When he was ten he met up with himself in his fifties, and even if he didn’t get to see ( _spy_ ) much back then but an ugly dog and some guy with tattoos on his hands stepping in the kitchen, he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was something off with Bob #2030. It was only some years later that he realized there was nothing off. It was just that Bob #2030 wasn’t a ten year old kid anymore.

Every once in a while Bob meets up with a version of himself about his same age, and that’s comforting, if anything. At least there’s some mutual understanding, a common ground which is much more solid than with the other versions. At seven he offered his toy drum to himself, age six and nine months, and they drove their mom up the walls with all the noise. At sixteen he and his almost seventeen version got gloriously drunk in the basement, and now-- well, now it’s complicated.

Now it’s December 30th 1998, one day before his birthday, and he’s lying on the couch of a friend’s apartment, while himself, version January 01st 1999, is giving him head. They’ve both downed a beer too many, pre and post birthday, but Bob suspects that claiming to be shitfaced would just be a lame excuse this time around. _I did stab that man with a pencil, Your Honor, but I was drunk, it isn’t my fault. I’m sorry that I cheated on you with the whole cheerleading team, honey, I was just shitfaced to the nineties and I thought it was you._ Sure.

Not that they’d need an excuse. This is something Nineteen Bob started, crashing on him soon after he showed up, and why not anyway? It’s a thing between himself _and_ himself, he isn’t cheating on anyone as he’s single in both versions (of course), and as Nineteen Bob put it, he was already naked and Eighteen Bob wanted a birthday present anyway.

Apparently, his present consists of a blowjob. It’s quite a sight, seeing himself between his legs and sucking his own dick; weird factor aside, it’s hot, even if he really needs to improve his technique and-- _oh fuck fuck fuck._

“You like?”

Nineteen Bob’s looking up now. He’s red in the face (Eighteen Bob thinks to be flushed red, too), his mouth wet and his hair hanging on his face. They’ve been thinking about cutting it short lately, but they haven't got around to doing it yet, and now that random though comes up again, totally disconnected to all the rest. Eighteen Bob blinks.

“Jesus, you. Be more of a fucking cockblock. Go _on_ , Christ.”

“Oh. Right. True. But you are, too,” answers Nineteen Bob, giving him a pointed look before going down on him again. He’s trying to imitate both all the gay porn they saw on TV and what other guys did to them those times they hooked up with someone, but the truth is that if Eighteen Bob is hard, it’s mainly because being able to give head to himself just doesn’t happen everyday. Or the other way round, it’s hard to use the right pronouns when you’re dealing with your temporal disconnected you.

Details aside, he’s starting to thrust into Nineteen Bob’s mouth, which is an okay thing to do because they like to have their mouth fucked, and if he knows himself well enough, soon Nineteen Bob will push a finger into him. He – _they_ – never went all the way with someone so far (their random hookups have been sporadic, since they aren’t the best looking guy around at all. Rather, they’re pretty average, bordering to okay-there’s-definitely-better), but some experimenting taught them something about the things they like.

Unfortunately, right before Eighteen Bob can spread his legs a bit further and hope for Nineteen to get the hint, Nineteen stops blowing him again.

“So, what’s your problem?” Eighteen Bob growls. “What’s going on in that fucking head of yours?”

He reaches out to grab his dick and finish himself off that way, since his two days older version apparently had a head concussion or something that renders him unable to grasp the concept of ‘you’re not giving yourself blue balls for fuck’s sake’, when Nineteen Bob slaps his hand away.

“What?”

“You’re an idiot,” says Nineteen Bob, rolling his eyes and getting up. He’s hard, too, and Eighteen Bob has no idea of what he wants to do now. Flabbergasted, Eighteen watches as Nineteen heads to the bedroom and turns back a couple of moments later with a bottle of lube. No, okay. Lube?

“What?” Eighteen Bob asks again.

“What do you think? Shut the fuck up now,” answers Nineteen Bob, settling between his legs and opening the bottle. “You want to do it, I want to do it, just let’s.”

“Who--” Eighteen Bob has to clear his throat twice before speaking, too distracted by what Nineteen is doing – rubbing lube on his own dick, which is exactly the same Eighteen Bob has, but that for some reason, looks bigger from where he is “--who says you get to top?”

“You’re topping all the same. I don’t know. Just shut up.”

When Nineteen Bob pushes into him, a few moments and a lubed finger later, it burns and Eighteen Bob bites him on the shoulder. He sucks at preparing people, alright, and he’d like to know what’s going on in Nineteen Bob’s head – what happened between tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to make him so fucking stupid – but at the same time it’s-- good? Comforting? Something like that, but now he has no time to lose looking for the right word.

For a while there are just the wet (deliciously obscene) noises of sex and their heavy breathing; no more talking. Eighteen Bob has his arms around Nineteen Bob’s neck, kissing Nineteen Bob’s jaw, while Nineteen is holding him by the hip. Eighteen’s dick is trapped between their bellies, and when Nineteen lowers his head a bit to catch Eighteen’s lips with his own, he also slides a hand down to grasp it. That’s from a porn, Eighteen Bob recognizes it, but at the moment he doesn’t care. It’s good, even if the burning is still lingering, not completely gone.

They both come a little later, uncaring about trying to outlast the other – what’s the point of it when you’re running a race against yourself anyway? – and they’re still panting when Nineteen Bob grabs Eighteen’s chin and forces him to look up.

“Don’t ask me if it’s been good. It’s--”

“--the cheapest thing ever. No, it isn’t that.” Nineteen Bob kisses him, pushing his tongue into Eighteen Bob’s mouth. “I love you,” he says then, smiling. “You big fat fuck.”

“I love you too,” answers Eighteen. “You big fat _cheesy_ fuck. Get off me now.”

Nineteen Bob opens his mouth to reply, but he jumps back to his time right in that moment.

 

_Bob is seventeen. Frank is seventeen._

 

The lid of the garbage box is pushed open right when Bob reaches up. The whole thing is so unexpected – the protesting noise of the lid, the yellow light that blinds him, and the fingers that close around his wrist – that he can’t hold back a surprised cry, halfway between a yell and a hiccup.

“Don’t scream, you pussy, it’s just me,” says someone whose voice Bob can’t recognize, then those fingers try to yank him up, with little to no effect. “Okay, but help me a little, for fuck’s sake. Hate to break the news to you, but you’re fucking heavy.”

“I’m not,” Bob protests at once automatically, before pushing aside a couple of trash bags with his free arm. “Wait a moment, alright? Bottom’s slippery, I already fell back twice. Let me go.”

His rescuer loosens the grip and Bob spends a few moments struggling to regain at least some balance: one of the bags spilled all its content around, and the mixture of rotten vegetables, cat litter and old coffee grounds is making a simple task – getting up and out of the garbage box – harder than it should. Besides, the stench is nauseating.

“Okay, now,” he says when he has both hands on the box edge, and his rescuer – a boy of about his age, even if it’s hard to tell since now that his eyes aren’t adjusted to darkness anymore, the blinding light of before turned out to be the one of an old streetlamp – grabs him by the arms, helping him while he climbs out. As soon as his bare feet touch the curb, Bob shivers and wraps his arms around his waist. Fuck modesty, he’s freezing. He didn’t realize it was so cold until now.

“Winter?” he stutters.

“Yeah, and you haven’t lost the habit of running around naked. Have this, it snowed last night,” answers the boy, taking off his coat and putting it around Bob’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s move away from that box. What’s inside, dead rats? Because it stinks to high heavens – and you, too. Whoa. Didn’t you have any better place to jump to? I mean, sorry dude but you’re fucking gross.”

Bob opens his mouth to reply, then he shakes his head. “I take it we already met,” he says in a neutral tone instead.

“More than once, yep, even if you probably don’t remember me. You were too young last time. Never mind. I’m Frank. I knew it was you when I heard the noise and the swearing. I had to stop there and listen for a moment, I never heard some of the things you said. You’ve gotta teach me all, okay? Anyway, you’re lucky that mom told me to take out the trash or you’d still be in the garbage box, drowning among dead rats.”

“Awfully lucky, I guess. I’m Bob.”

“I know,” says Frank, turning to give him a smug look. They’re crossing someone’s backyard now, Frank with both hands shoved into his pockets and the hood of his sweater pulled up and Bob a couple of steps behind, shuddering and walking almost on the tips of his toes. Stupid icy ground. He’s so busy paying attention not to step on glass shards (been there, done that) or not slipping on an ice patch that he doesn’t notice how Frank has already stopped in front of the back door of some house and runs into him.

“Sorry,” Bob mumbles, embarrassed. “Didn’t see you.”

“No problem, dude. This is my place, get in now before you freeze. Your lips are getting blue, I think.”

*

After a hot bath and some food Frank’s mom prepared for him (his unexpected presence didn’t surprise her, she just ordered him to the tub the moment he set foot in her kitchen and brought him some spare clothes when he got downstairs wrapped in a bathrobe), Bob starts feeling human again. Sure, he’s still a bit cold and Frank’s clothes look ridiculous on him, but he’s in a warm place, clean and safe. He hasn’t always been granted the same luxury during a jump.

Besides, Frank’s mom decided that he’d sleep at their place that night, so there’s a makeshift bed on the couch ready for him, too.

“Thank you so much,” Bob says when she shows up with an additional pillow. “You’re saving my a-- uh, _life_ tonight.”

“Hey, I did!” protests Frank, whacking him on the head. “Who pulled you out of the garbage box?”

“Turn down the TV and your voice, Frank. And Bob, you don’t have to worry about anything, it’s fine. The TV, Frank.”

“Okay, okay.”

She nods as her son grabs the remote and puts the movie he and Bob are watching on mute, then she looks at them both. “I’m gonna go lie down now, I need to get up early tomorrow. You boys will go to bed, too, okay? It’s late.”

“In a minute, mom,” answers Frank and gets up to kiss her goodnight. She’s gone a moment later, but rather than going back to the movie, Frank tosses the remote aside and turns to him. They’re on the carpet with their backs against the couch, just like a couple of friends during a sleepover. Too bad that he and Frank aren’t-- friends? Not really? That stupid CDP thing fucks with Bob’s social relationships, since he’s in the same room with someone who knows him, but who Bob can’t recognize. He sighs.

“What is it, Frank?”

“How old are you?” asks Frank, tilting his head.

“Seventeen, why?”

“Me too. But I was wondering what age you were. I mean, for real.”

“Uh?” Bob casts him a weird look. “Seventeen, I just told you. It isn’t that I change age when I jump. I only go forward, to the future. Or back in the past.”

“And what is this? The past or the future? Because it looks pretty much like present from where I sit.”

“I don’t know. I live in 1997,” says Bob. Talking about time continuum and shit like that is always complicated. Most of the time it only gives him a fine headache. “It’s spring in Chicago and I’ll be eighteen in December.”

“I see,” answers Frank. “Well, it’s November here, it’s 1998, and my birthday was last month. We’re in Jersey, by the way.”

“Okay, then it’s the future. My future.”

“Yeah.” Frank plants an elbow on the blanket that covers the couch and leans on it. “I’d like to know why you always jump here. There must be a reason, I guess.”

“Maybe? I can’t tell, though, we haven’t meet in my present yet. Just, how many times have I been here anyway? It’s--” Bob waves his hand in the air “--I keep on jumping, okay? And I run into a shitload of people every time, relatives, strangers, blah blah. Even myself. Some of them recognize me, some not, I recognize some of them back, but it’s fucking hard to keep track of everyone.”

“That makes sense. I think I remember about you just because there’s no one else who jumps back and forth in my life. Anyway, this is the fourth time you’ve been here. Generic here. I’m not totally sure about the first, but I think it was you because you disappeared in front of my eyes and you looked like-- you. At least a bit.”

“For real? What did I look like?”

“Hm. Older. Taller, but not that much. You had a beard and were barefoot,” answers Frank, nodding, and then he snickers when Bob rubs a hand on his chin, reflexively. “I said _older_ , don’t get your pants in a twist now.”

“What, I could grow a beard if I wanted to, and I know I will. I saw it.”

Frowning, Frank leans a little closer. There’s something about him that makes Bob feel both at ease and slightly alarmed, but he can’t quite pinpoint what it is. He yawns, tired. It’s probably just a consequence of the jump, sometime they leave him a bit off – and besides, he was about to go to bed when it happened.

“I think--” Bob begins, but Frank interrupts him.

“I think you’re lame if you do stuff just because you saw it in your future. Who wants a life like that?” he says, shaking his head, and before Bob can tell him off – he _doesn’t_ and he isn’t lame, and he doesn’t need anyone to talk shit about his life, thank you very much – Frank grabs his chin and kisses him

It’s a clumsy kiss, with too much tongue and teeth and little to no experience from both sides, even if Bob’s too shocked to really do anything that isn’t sitting there and letting Frank do what he wants, but it’s good all the same. So much that at some point Bob reaches up and touches Frank’s face with his fingers, tentatively cupping it that way. When they pull away, they’re both panting.

“See if you saw that in your future, too,” comments Frank in a defiant tone.

“You’re batshit.”

“Maybe, yes. But you pissed me off.”

“And you go around sucking face of whoever pisses you off?” asks Bob, blinking.

“Well, you didn’t pull back.”

“I didn’t,” agrees Bob slowly. He’s unsure about what Frank’s trying to prove here, his point – if Frank’s got any – so he doesn’t really know how to react, and the fact that Frank gets up after a last reproachful look and goes away isn’t shedding any more light on it.

 

_Bob is twenty-three. Frank is twenty._

 

Bob’s outside playing with his lighter when the door opens, letting Frank out. He plays guitar in that band Schechter insisted on introducing him to, the one he manages and that desperately needs a sound tech, money, less alcohol going around and maybe a kick in the ass, too. They all met a couple of hours ago, talked about music over hamburgers and some Diet Coke for a while, the five of them, Brian and himself, and now Bob is deciding if he could live with what they said ( _asked, begged_ ) between the lines. His gut feelings say yes, his mind says no, and even if he already knows what he’s going to do in the end, he guesses he’s giving his mind some time to deal with it.

Apparently though, Frank – this Frank reminds him of another Frank, the one who pulled him out of a garbage box during one of his jumps and kissed him in his mom’s living room, but it’s just a feeling and Bob isn’t sure it’s really him – is either too eager to know about Bob’s decision or the guys sent him to test the water, because he flops on the same step Bob’s sitting on and pulls the hood of his sweater up.

“Are you going to say yes or no because you already saw where you’ll be in the future?” Frank asks as greeting, his voice as neutral as if he’s just dropped a comment about the weather. “I still think it’s lame. Just saying.”

“You--” begins Bob, but then he shakes his head. “You know me.”

“Of course I do. I’m Frank, and your long-term memory is still fucked up.”

“Not as much as you think. Hi Frank.”

“ _Fwank_. You said _Fwank_ one time we met. You also disappeared from a bench in the park--”

“Yesterday,” says Bob slowly, but Frank shakes his head.

“No, not yesterday. I was seven. Then you left sticky fingerprints on the action figure of Batman I had when you were about three or four, you made me believe there was a monster under my bed when I was ten, and we swapped spit at seventeen. And I’m twenty now and we met for the first time today around noon.”

“I didn’t make you believe shit.” Bob’s protest sounds weak even to his own ears, but he’s _remembering_. He’s picking shards of other memories, putting them together. Yes, he ran into a Frank a couple of times more, a Frank who more or less resembles the Frank sitting next to him. The Frank of those few hours of his Jersey jump. “It was you who thought I was a monster.”

“Whatever. At least you have shoes and clothes on this time. I’d call it an improvement.”

They stare at each other for a moment or two, then Bob arches his eyebrow. “You must really want me to help your band out, huh?”

“Why, I do. But I want to know if you’ve gotten any smarter over the years, too.”

Before Bob can tell him to go and fuck himself, just like he should have done when they were seventeen, Frank makes him turn his head and kisses him, just like he _did_ when they were seventeen. There’s a bit of déjà-vu in it, mixed up with surprise, amusement, and some excitement, too. And at least Frank’s learned not to bite too much. Bob, on his side, is better at overcoming unexpected stuff now and answers the kiss pretty soon, moaning when Frank grabs the front of his hoodie for good measure.

“Nice beard,” says Frank a little later, after they pulled back. They’re still close, their breath mingling together and Frank hasn't let him go yet. “Suits you. So, answer me. Are you? And what are you gonna do?”

“Well, I guess I ain’t, because I was thinking about fixing your sound before you showed up and sucked my face off, and I still do. I’m sure this doesn’t qualify as a smart move. And I let it grow because I liked it, okay? I do what I like to do now and that’s why things are the way they are in the future, not the other way around.”

“Good.” Frank reaches over and kisses Bob again, just a small peck on his lips this time, then he whacks him on the head. Yeah, that’s definitely his Frank. “I think I might keep you around, then. For a while,” he says and grins.

“Well, thank you. And nice to meet you. At last,” replies Bob, grinning back.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost (2010)


End file.
